Liz Ortecho (sjimenez) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2020-03-24 21:37:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, liz ortecho, max evans |
Who: Liz Ortecho & Max Evans
When: Backdated: Early February, after this.
Where: A Bar
What: Liz has had more dreams and needs to ask Max a few things.
Rating/Warnings: Family Friendly
Status: Complete
Liz wasn’t really sure how she was going to breach this topic with Max, considering he didn’t appear to have dreamt about Rosa or the letter yet. Of course, if he had then he was doing a good job of keeping it too himself, which would be pretty sucky of him, if she were honest. And then of course there was the whole part where Max, in the dreams, had been in love with her since highschool, which left her wondering if Max, in real life, had also been in love with her and if he had been, did he still have feelings for her now? She was just so confused, because there was still the chance that Max had been the one who’d killed Rosa.
Either way, Liz had to talk to Max so they had made plans to get together for drinks when she got out of work. She had brought the letter, which had appeared on her nightstand the morning after her dreams, with her and was planning on showing it to Max. Reaching the bar they had agreed to meet at, Liz went in and glanced around to see if Max had arrived yet.
Max had arrived a bit early and was at the bar, an untouched beer in front of him. Seeing Liz his arm rose in a wave, a half smile spreading through his eyes remained a bit worried. There had to be a reason she’d needed to meet with him so badly and he’d bet his bottom dollar it had something to do with the dreams.
“Hey,” he greeted. “We can grab a booth if you want?” Something told him this would be a conversation best had with at least a modicum of privacy. “After you get a drink, I mean.”
“Hi, Max,” Liz still wasn’t quite sure how she was going to bring up the letter or anything else from her most recent dreams and seeing Max made it even harder to think about what she was going to say, but a drink definitely sounded like the best way to start the entire night. “Yeah, let me get a drink then we can find a booth.” It would be best to sit at a booth where less people could hear what she was sure other people would think of as an extremely crazy conversation.
Once she had her drink in hand, she glanced around for a booth and spotted an empty one near the back, “That one looks good.”
Nodding, Max let her take a seat first before sliding into the seat across from her. “So, what did you want to discuss?” He questioned. “What’s been going on in the dreams?”
Now that they were there, sitting across from each other, Liz had no idea how to start this conversation. Did she tell him that they suspected that he’d killed Rosa? Did she tell him about the letter and that she had feelings for him? She wasn’t entirely sure which was the harder of the two, if she was completely honest. In the end she decided that the letter was probably the easier of the two to talk about first, “Well, I went on a little scavenger hunt. Maria and I followed some clues left by Rosa.” She picked up her drink and took a sip as she thought about the letter in her purse.
“Yeah?” He questioned, leaning forward slightly. His interest was completely genuine. Caring for Liz as he did, Max wanted to know about her life, the dreams, and how they interacted. “Find anything interesting?”
Liz bit her bottom lip, wondering if maybe she shouldn’t have started this conversation right off the bat. She could have asked Max what he’d been up to recently; how work was going, but he’d asked her about the dreams first and she couldn’t stop herself from jumping into it, “Um, we did actually.” She reached into her purse and pulled out the letter, “I thought it was for Rosa at first, but it turned out that it was for me.” Tentatively she put the letter on the table and pushed it towards Max, slowly. She didn’t know how he’d react to seeing a letter he’d written that he hadn’t actually written; a letter that expressed how he felt about her at that.
He froze a moment at the letter. He didn’t have to pick it up to know what it was. “...yeah,” Max agreed. “I was going to give it to you but Rosa…”. Rosa had flipped out on him. Not that he could blame her. Liz did deserve more than he could offer. She was a special woman.
“There’s a question attached to that, isn’t there.” He sat back a bit, unsure of how to broach it, exactly. Just in case he was wrong about what she was asking.
“Yeah, Rosa intercepted it,” Liz wasn’t sure how to ask Max how he felt. If he felt the same way about her in the waking world as he did in the dreams. Sure, he’d kissed her at the Christmas Village, but they’d been under the mistletoe so it had only made sense that he would have kissed her. However, she would be the first to admit that it hadn’t felt like just a friendly kiss. She was sure that part of her was simply afraid of him saying no.
Liz took another sip of her drink before she looked up and met Max’s eyes again, “Do you feel that way about me here? Or...or was it just in the dreams?” She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and were it not for the music in the bar, she would bet that Max probably would have been able to hear it.
It took a minute for Max to answer though he didn’t look away, eyes shining with sincerity. “I’d have to be crazy not to.” And blind not just to see how beautiful she was but also how wonderful, Passionate, smart, unwilling to take shit from anyone….
“Not exactly how I wanted to tell you there just...there never seemed to be a right time to say anything.” She’d either been in a relationship or she’d been out of town or a hundred different things.
Part of Liz had been expecting a response like that, but a bigger part of her had thought she would get a different answer and despite hearing the one she’d wanted, she wasn’t entirely sure what to say next. “Really? You’re not just saying that because of the dreams?” Liz didn’t know when her trust issues had begun, but at some point over the last ten years she’d put up walls which she hadn’t let many people over in some time. “Because I would understand if it was.” If abilities and things could bleed over from the dreams why not feelings?
Of course she knew this was ridiculous because she too had felt something for Max even before the dreams. She was simply trying to protect her heart and she didn’t think Max could blame her for that.
“It’s not just because of the dreams,” Max shook his head. “I’ve had feelings for you since...pretty much from the moment we met.” His head ducked a bit bashfully. “I should’ve said something.” Instead he’d been an idiot about it all.
She believed him. Max wasn’t the type to lie and he was just so sincere that there was no way that what Max was saying was influenced by the dreams, “You could have said something after the mistletoe.” Liz licked her lips as she reached out and placed a hand over Max’s on the table, “I’m pretty sure that would have been your cue.” It definitely would have been nice if she hadn’t had to wonder for two months afterwards whether or not there had been more behind the kiss than just a tradition.
“You were meeting people,” Max reminded her, his hand shifting to squeeze hers. “And I guess I kinda hoped that the kiss spoke for itself.” He’d been stupid, in other words.
Liz couldn’t help but laugh softly and shake her head, “I didn’t mean right then and there, but you could have said something at any time after that.” Liz also could have texted or called Max at any time after that, but with the holidays things had sort of been pushed to the wayside. “I honestly wasn’t sure if it was just the mistletoe or if there was more.”
“More,” he answered, glancing up at her. “Definitely more. But you’re kind of intimidating, you know that, Liz Ortecho? You’re brilliant and beautiful and...you have to have guys falling over themselves for a chance with you. And I’m...I’m just me.”
Liz’s soft laugh turned into a slightly louder laugh as Max continued to talk and she quickly brought her free hand up to cover her mouth, looking slightly embarrassed, “I’m intimidating? Me?” No one had ever told her that before and now she couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else thought the same thing, “And Max, you’re not just you. You’re pretty awesome too. You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
He was blushing, actually blushing at the compliment. “Not intimidating in a bad way,” he clarified. “Just...amazing.” Not perfect, he was completely aware of her flaws. But those flaws only added to her beauty.
“And thank you.” He didn’t hear it from many people. He certainly hadn’t had a long string of girlfriends or anything.
Liz smiled at Max, feeling one of the many weights upon her shoulders lift. There was still the whole, Max may have killed Rosa thing, but she didn’t want to bring the mood down just yet, “Well, now that we’ve got all of that off our chests, I’m buying the next round of drinks.” She picked up her almost empty drink and finished it off, “Same thing?” She asked, pointing at Max’s current drink.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” Max nodded. “Thank you for the drink.” And he couldn’t begin to say how happy he was that she’d asked to meet up. And that they had finally been able to communicate their feelings to one another.